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Please don't assume anything. In this particular case you're dead wrong. If you have something constructive to add to the discussion then by all means continue to follow the thread. And how did you arrive at the conclusion that he wanted to make big bucks...jeez.

Neither one of us is a professional welder; obviously. My thinking was that the sooner he gain some skill the quicker he would be able to land some kind of a job. What I do know about welding it's that practice, practice, practice is the only way.

Cruizer, if I thought I had all the answers, I wouldn't have looked for this forum in the first place. I'm trying to help a kid that has no idea as to what direction to go in. Constructive advice would be greatly appreciated.

From your first post you asked it there is a crash course in welding. Really there are no such things except the rip-off career schools that advertise the world but deliver nothing but debt.

Some people never get welding. And if you force it on them they hate it. You have to build up slow and in some cases beg for guidance. A lot of the tricks of the trade are inbred in experience. I can teach a monkey to weld but I have to supervise like a school marm all day long. And do you think they repay the favor some day? Most likely not.

I hire them young and cheap. I go through a fair share of posers before I get one worth bestowing my experience to. And even then a lot of the time they hire on down the street for a couple of dollars more an hour. That is their biggest mistake because now they are on their own. I see bunches of them giving up a few years later because they get burned out on the production line of greed.

Still I believe it is best to continue school and work welding nights earning minimum wage garnering those golden nuggets of knowlegde working beside a veteran of the industry that knows how to turn a rusty chunk of metal into profit. Then the work will be rewarding in itself, and the money will come.

Speaking with someone last night they mentioned a welding program with middle**** county vocational tech with several class openings currently. There are several locations as well that sounded near you too..... Just FYI

Ignore the asterisk above, guess there is some word monitoring technology in place that replaced the three letters prior to it!

i took the welding night classes at the middle*** votech in piscataway a couple yrs ago. it was pretty good. now i have my own welders and just burning away. the teacher there are very helpful and a good guy. i was gonna take the aws class there but budget is prohibiting me now. so i'm taking machine shop and autobody class to learn more stuff. iwill prob take the aws class next yr when i can afford it after my mustang project is complete. good luck ps. better hurry up if u wanna sign up. i think classes start sept 12

I was like you not too long ago. I was looking for an intensive welding training and it took me quite a long time to find the right one for me. What you need to know first is in what specific area is your son interested in then go from there. There are welding schools that provide intensive training to specific area of expertise. You can check this out and see if this is what you are looking for.

I've always heard good things about the Hobart Welding School (HIWT). It may be further than your son may want to travel but they also have online and dvd courses that you can take at the local votech school and still get their diploma's. The key would be having access to a location to practice welding which no matter where you go, your going to have to burn some rods. I get their publications regularly and read a lot of stuff about them in the welding Industry and their supposed to be one of the better schools. They also have accelerated courses.

I have a son who is currently in a welding program in a Technical High School.

Just bought him a stick welder so he could burn a lot of rod at home to practice.

The goal at his school is to pass the AWS test in SMAW, I forget which weld they are going for but it's one of the tougher ones.

I guess I'd like to add they they just went on a field trip to a local company, a welding supplier if you will, who also runs a welding school.

Personally I took some courses through the local community college, they were a couple of nights a week for a couple of months. Cost was about $350 and they were very 'informative'.

Maybe before you son launches into one of the more pricey school option he should look for one like at the community college if for no other reason than to get some exposure to welding.
WARNING: The following information is only offered as ideas on where to look. I have had no experience with either of these places and cannot speak to their effectiveness or ineffectiveness.